July 9, 2023
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church
Lakeland, Florida
Psalm 37:1-11
Genesis 37 -- 50
Grace to you and peace from God and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
I hope that you have seen even in just our three Sundays of revisiting the Sunday School stories we heard and learned long ago, that these are complicated people with complicated lives who wavered in their faith, who struggled in very real ways, who still were part of God’s family of faith, our forebears. Perhaps like me, you too wish for that time when we could sit down with our grandparents just one more time to hear more from them about what it was that they valued in their lives, what their struggles and complications were. And could pour out to them the complications in our own lives and hear wisdom from them.
So as we look back at Noah and Rebekah and Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael and all the others, whose life is it that strikes a chord with you? Or is there a particular event that resonates in you? Maybe there’s a flood or a famine that you found a way out of. Or one that you are still looking for God’s providential hand in the midst of.
One of the long-time members of an adult class that was studying the First Reading of the Day from the Hebrew Scriptures, what we often refer to as the Old Testament, commented, “Pastor, I don’t understand. Pastor Suchandso told us that we didn’t need the Old Testament anymore because Jesus has come and we have the New Testament. And, to be honest, I just don’t like the God of the Old Testament because he seems so angry all the time and the stories are so violent. We don’t really need this do we?”
My friends, you will hear me say this again and again. Among the things that we see in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, is a God who reached out and rescued God’s people time after time after time when they found themselves in a pickle, even one of their own making. We see a God whose compassion and care is so great that God never gave up on them.
And when we look at the whole arc of the story, the whole trajectory, we see not single little stories on a flannel board through the eyes of a 7 year old, but we see the beautiful weaving together of events and people living as God’s beloved creation, not always in unity, not always in harmony, but always beloved of the Lord.
So, these stories of Scripture. My favorite story is the story of Elijah in the wilderness, exhausted and despairing and giving up. Elijah nourished by the angels. And my other favorite story is that of the woman who came to Jesus and touched the hem of his garment and was healed. And my other favorite story is the dream of Peter when God told him that all food was fit for him to eat. And my other favorite story… well, you get my drift.
So my favorite story is this story of Joseph. A favorite for two reasons.
First, at the climax of the story, after father Jacob had died, there was a turning point. Joseph could have turned his back on his brothers – as his brothers had done to him so many years previously. Remember that Joseph was his father’s favorite son. With father gone, there was no parent left as a buffer. No father to be disappointed. Only Joseph and his brothers. And his brothers were fully aware of this and they were worried and perhaps frightened for their lives. And it may even have been understandable if Joseph had left his family behind.
But – and this is my favorite part – Joseph has come a long way from that spoiled indulged young one in a bright technicolor dream coat. The decades since that have held so much. Times of struggle and pain. Times of success and recognition. Times of loss and times of gain. And out of these decades came this remarkable statement on his part: Out of what you intended for evil and harm, God brought life and provision for many. No need on his part to get revenge. No need to get even. No need to break relationships. No need to name call and cast aspersions. No need to rehash things long past. Instead, simple care and forgiveness and love and kindness. Yes, my favorite story.
But not only this. Over this story, this novella as many have called it, that spanned about 100 years, we see all manner of things. Jealousy, arrogance, times of plenty and times of want. Palace intrigue and family feuds. Joy and sorrow. And in and through it all, not only was God persistently present, but God took the frayed strands of these stories and wove them into an experience of redemption, reconciliation and restoration.
I have seen this in my life and I bet you have in yours or in the lives of those you love. Sometimes this redemption and reconciliation and restoration happens quickly. But most often it does not. It happens over the course of time. And that’s the second reason that this story is my favorite in Scripture – along with that of Elijah and the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ robe and Peter and so many others. Yes, this is my favorite because in it we witness what has been called “the slow work of God.” This runs counter to what we would like. This runs counter to what we want. But it is a theological truth that we see in the story of Joseph that God works even when we don’t see it, when we don’t directly sense it.
And this truth of the slow work of God embedded deeply in this story and in fact in the stories of the matriarchs and patriarchs is one of the rich fruits that we can pick from these stories of our forebears in faith that nourish our lives today.
Thanks be to God.
